Heart failure and atrial fibrillation are major health concerns, especially when they are clinical outcomes in older individuals. Diastolic dysfunction is a highly prevalent condition and has been associated with heart failure (HF) and atrial fibrillation (AF) in cross-sectional studies. It has traditionally been thought that the physiological cause of HF and AF is abnormal diastolic deformation of the left ventricle. However, this remains largely unproven.
Circumferential strain and strain rate using CMR tagged images has been shown to accurately and reproducibly quantify deformation of the left ventricle (LV) through diastole. Evaluation of diastolic function using cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) has not been firmly established in spite of a number of efforts. Early-diastolic strain rate and untwist rate have been used as diastolic parameters, but not as metrics to predict cardiovascular events.
It would therefore be advantageous to provide a method and system to predict cardiovascular events using CMR analysis for deformation of the LV through diastole.